A Game Diary To Remember, NJ @ NYR 12/17/06

How cruel (and yet hilarious) to give us a Rangers game on this UFA week. We’d be grossed out, but after consulting our “15 To Remember” schedule, we’re endlessly delighted to see that the Devils won this one 6-1. Heh. (Of course, one can only wonder how much Gomez has to do with that. The slag-faced whore.)

FIRST PERIOD

19:47 Doc is talking, a bit more graphically than we’d like, about how Aaron Ward has been puking his guts out with the flu.

19:11 Ah, the famous “It’s a pastry shop — full of turnovers” comment from Chico. He doesn’t claim credit for it, though, and says it’s an old player expression. Perhaps in Chico’s crazy world that’s something players say a lot; we’re a lot more inclined to believe players say things like, “The turnovers were giving 110%” and “Those pucks were just trying to be the best turned-over pucks they could possibly be.”

18:20 Some Ranger named Adam Hall gets a nice chance on a strangely-developing 2-on-1, and Marty makes one of those “fuck you, Ranger fans!” flashy glove saves. Heh. He’s probably practicing his “fuck you” body language for next season’s Ranger games already.

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Reasons We Love Hockey Part 19

The 19th in our 118 part series.

Power Play

No, not power plays, Power Play, the German card game! We are people who love the idea of playing board games but it’s a rare game that the two of us can agree is fun. Schnookie is really Type A and can’t stand being out-strategized, preferring word games like Boggle; Pookie can’t spell to save her life and thus sucks at games like Boggle, but also isn’t smart enough to be truly good at strategy games. Over the years we’d established cribbage and Quiddler were perfect, but those games are both missing a certain je ne sais hockey. Enter Power Play. Power Play is a very simple affair, following a similar structure to War. Cards with higher numbers beat cards with lower numbers. Every player draws six cards — 3 forwards, 2 defensemen and 1 goalie. A turn consists of a player either challenging another team to a game, trading a player by discarding and drawing from the main piles, or trading by drawing blind from another player and then giving to that player a card that matches the type of the traded player (everyone must always maintain the 3 forwards, 2 d-men and 1 goalie pattern). A challenge match consists of each player laying down one card at the same time; the higher card scores a goal with the one exception that a goalie always stops a skater (if two goalies face off, the higher value scores a goal). There are also certain cards that act as “bruisers”, knocking their opponent out of action regardless of the face value of the card. The challenge continues until all 6 cards are played; in the event of a tie, the match goes into sudden death overtime. Sure it doesn’t sound challenging, but there is so much charm and silliness inherent in this game, we just can’t get enough of it!

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